


A Thousand Words

by sallyamongpoison



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Grief/Mourning, Idiots in Love, M/M, Memory Loss, Mutual Pining, Mutually Unrequited, Pictures, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-11-02 06:44:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20657141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallyamongpoison/pseuds/sallyamongpoison
Summary: In which the Loser's Club fill up a disposable camera over the summer, and the pictures left behind mean more than Richie and Eddie could have imagined.





	A Thousand Words

The summer, in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t the worst. Sure there had been the whole impending death thing: killer clowns, crawling around in the sewer, their worst nightmares coming to life and haunting them until they cried for mercy, and homicidal bullies. There was no getting around that. That part had been the worst. Weirdly, though, there were other parts of that summer that were so mind numbingly normal- friendships were tested and strengthened, crushes were had, a whole fucking adventure out of a movie had been gone on. It was probably one of the most oxymoronic things to ever have happened in their young lives. Maybe that was Derry, though. All the weird and horrible shit could be glossed over by the day to day shit. So much so, actually, that as the days went on the memories faded.

Not all of them faded, though. Not physically, anyway. There was proof that summer had happened, real proof, and they could hold it in their hands. Even if the context around what was happening faded they could all look at those moments frozen in time and conjure up some kind of half-hearted happy feeling.

On some level it might have been a form of rebellion against what had been happening to them. Ben had come racing up the street on his bike with a bag from the pharmacy hanging from the handlebars. He was excited, smiling, and it had been damned infectious. Something about allowance money and the fact that he wanted to spend it on something that wasn’t just comic books or junk food to hide in the clubhouse, and they’d all met his enthusiasm with equal parts amusement and confusion.

A disposable camera. Oh yeah. It was peak summer shenanigans with that around. That was twenty-seven whole moments they could pick and choose to remember together. And of course it was together. It was Ben’s, sure, but he’d presented it to them as though it belonged to all of them. Anyone could pick it up and snap a picture of whatever it was they were doing, and that moment would last forever. Just like their friendship was going to last forever. That was how it felt as they ripped open the package and immediately started arguing over the best way to use it.

_ “We could make a comic with it! Super Losers!” _

_ “Glamour Shots! Really pad out the portfolio!” _

_ “Scrapbook of weird shit we always find out here!” _

There was a weird air to it. There was the unspoken idea that they should use it to document all the horrible shit they saw, both together and apart, but no one ever said it. No, this was something good. Something that existed outside the horror they faced. As bad as it all was, and would be, none of them wanted to use something like this to document all the bad they were witnessing. It was twenty-seven exposures of something good, and the Loser’s Club was going to use it to the best of that dinky little camera’s abilities.

The pictures weren’t great. They were kids, after all, and had shaking hands and no idea of how to make the light and action work for them. A good number of the pictures were blurry or had thumbs and fingers in the corners, but they were still absolutely perfect. Each smile was a battle against the evil they fought against, every laugh was a moment of respite, and all those moments were a bond that couldn’t be unbroken.

They took it everywhere: the quarry, the arcade, the clubhouse, whoever’s house they went to. There was always the telltale bulge in someone’s pocket or bag that the camera was there and ready. At first they’d been liberal with snapping every goofy face or stupid moment, but as the number on the counter wound down they were more and more precious with it. Even if the pictures were bad they were worth something. They were worth everything, and if they held their breath long enough to think about it there was an ache in their chests that there would never be another summer like this one. For good or ill, those pictures were going to capture something that no one outside their group of seven would ever be able to imagine.

When they snapped the last picture there was almost a feeling of mourning. It was exciting, it was the knowledge that they had finished something together, but it was a loss. Bev had been the one to suggest they pool what little money they had to get it developed: arcade quarters, movie ticket movie, allowance, change from under the couch cushions; they’d pooled everything in a jar that sat on a shelf in the clubhouse, and when they had enough they all went together to fill out the little envelope and tucked the camera into it. In a day they would have their treasure, and for even as sad as it was there was that unbridled teenage excitement to see what they’d made.

Stan had been the one to pick the envelope up. He was the most responsible, after all, and had come back to the clubhouse clutching the packet of pictures like he was scared it might disappear. He was smiling. They were all smiling. In the dim light of their underground haven they crowded around and passed each picture across grabbing hands and laughter so loud that anyone above them could hear it for miles. It gave them a chance to look back on a time that was only a few weeks, but also an entire age for them. They weren’t the same people who had thrown out the contents of their backpacks at the end of the school year. They were more than that, and each of those pictures showed it.

_ “What the fuck is this face? You look like you’re staring into the fifth dimension!” _

_ “Seriously? You couldn’t have waited until I didn’t have a whole ass ice cream cone in my mouth?” _

_ “That’s a good one! Holy shit, you look like a model!” _

_ “Let me see that one! Oh my God, I can see your dick!” _

They were stupid and juvenile, but they were the best pictures any of the Loser’s Club had ever taken in their lives. Everyone took at least one, and at the end of the pile they all stood together looking at a group shot they’d asked Richie’s mom to take. It was all seven of them on their bikes, standing together and grinning wildly at the camera, and those seven kids didn’t at all look like the ones that had crawled out from the sewer and felt themselves age ten years in under a day. Those were kids. Those were the friends every kid had when they were awkward and thirteen and just starting to find their place in the world with their allies beside them.

No one saw Eddie slide the picture he held into the bag clipped around his waist. No one saw him fold it in half and tuck it away where no one could see. The light in the clubhouse was dim enough that none of them could see that his cheeks were slightly pink either or that his hands shook in a way that had nothing to do with the handful of Airheads that he’d shoved in his mouth not ten minutes before. They were all too busy fawning over the rest of the pile and each other.

“I’m taking this one!” Richie announced as he held up one. His fingers gripped it at the top, right in the middle, as he held it up almost triumphantly. It was one of those half-blurry shots of he and an open mouthed Eddie who was no doubt in the middle so saying something. Richie’s arms were outstretched as he leaned in and mugged for the camera as though he was going in for a huge hug. Clearly, whatever was happening at the time, Eddie was having none of it.

“Why that one?” Eddie asked. His brows were furrowed down and he cocked his head to the side ever so slightly in the way that he always did when he had An Opinion about something.

Richie shrugged, then grinned, “Because I can cut your ugly ass face out of it and put my new girlfriend’s face in it instead!”

“You’re such a dick, you know that?”

“It’s why you love me!”

No one had argued, and when they went home that night with their treasure trove of memories none of them gave a second thought to where those pictures would end up. Maybe taped to the inside of their lockers come September, that was a probability, or tucked away in boxes or albums to look at when they were home alone. Surely one or two would get stuffed into their backpacks or binders for them to pull out between classes or after school so they could laugh about whatever stupid thing they’d captured. Those pictures were just as important as they were mundane, and they were still children enough to not think too hard about it.

\--

Summer came and went. The long and hot days took with it the hours of free time and daylight meant to chase away all of the horror they’d witnessed. The nights got longer, the weather got colder and brought with it long nights of thunder and lightning that shook the foundations of their houses. It was stupid to be afraid of thunder and lightning now, wasn’t it? They’d fought for their literal lives in the sewers and faced down their deepest and darkest fears. What was a little thunderstorm?

It wasn’t the thunder that woke Eddie from the nightmare he was having. It might not even have been the lightning. Instead it was the heart-pounding terror and tightness in his chest that made him roll over, flick on the lamp beside his bed, and grab for his inhaler. The dreams were formless things, vague memories of them screaming and running and feeling like he was one misstep away from death, but they woke him nonetheless. In the quiet of the house it was only his labored breathing and rush of blood in his ears that made any sound.

Two quick puffs made the tightness in his chest ease, and Eddie finally took a long and deep breath. He was sweating but he was freezing cold. Shaking. The light from the lamp didn’t really do anything to ease his fear as it made the shadows in his room seem that much larger. The closet was a black hole. The space under his bed was a portal to certain death. The blackness outside his window as the rain came down in sheets was a constant reminder of the miles of dripping water and gore they’d crawled through. His asthma was taken care of, sure, but the panic remained. 

He settled himself back into bed, the sheets clammy and sticking to his still sweating skin, and he closed his eyes. Eddie didn’t want to go back to sleep, but he didn’t want to exist in this world where even the most mundane of shit made him see monsters that weren’t there. So he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to count away the panic. He tried to count away the fear and the nightmares. The worst part was that he was alone. His mother was asleep in the room down the hall from his own, but he knew that he was alone. This was something that she, and probably no one else could ever make better.

One hand, the one that Bill had torn into with that probably disease covered piece of glass, slid up into the side of his pillowcase. His eyes were still closed, but he didn’t need to see to know that what he sought was there. His fingers grabbed the thin piece of plastic and acetate, and Eddie pulled his hand back out. He could see it without opening his eyes, had looked at it enough times to have memorized every detail, and just the act of holding it did help the pounding of his heart. A picture. A picture from the pile they’d split up amongst themselves weeks before, and he held it for a long time before he opened his eyes.

This one was more in focus than some of the others had been. It had been taken after they’d spent the afternoon swimming, and they were splayed out on the rocky beach to get dry. Eddie stared into his own face, though not into his own eyes, and studied the moment trapped forever of he and Richie facing each other. They weren’t arguing, judging by the picture, and they both wore expressions that were relaxed and edging into smiling. A quiet moment. A moment where they’d been talking about something and he knew just by looking at it that if Mike or Ben or whoever was holding the camera had waited a split second longer they both would have been laughing at something stupid. Somehow this felt more right. Somehow this made him calmer than any of the ones where they were tackling each other or posing for the picture. This was the one he’d tucked away for himself because in that moment he knew he needed to have it.

Slowly he sat up, pulled by something he didn’t quite know or understand, and swung his feet over the end of the bed so he could face the little table that held his lamp, alarm clock, collection of books and papers, and a cup full of pens. Eddie reached out, grabbed a pen, stared at the picture again for a long moment, then flipped it over to write something on the back. It didn’t take much, just a few quick motions with his fingers, and then the pen went back were it had been taken from and he was back in bed with the picture still grasped in his fingers.

It took him a long time to fall asleep, what with the storm raging outside, but every flash of lightning illuminated the picture he held and Eddie just stared at it until he finally drifted off again. This time nothing chased him in his dreams. Nothing hunted him. Instead he dreamt of sunshine glinting off of prescription lenses and ice cream and laughter. He dreamt of arcade games and math homework. He dreamt like a fourteen year old dreamt, and his dreams didn’t haunt him when he woke the next morning.

\--

Why in the fuck had he packed so much shit? What did he think he was doing? Staying for a month? Two whole suitcases  _ and _ a toiletry bag? This wasn’t a trip to some resort for a month. Hell no, it had been him packing in a panic and throwing ten pairs of boxers into his bag like he was going to be shitting his pants twice a day for the entire time he was home. Why was he like this? And why had he pulled everything out of his suitcases like he was planning to stay even a minute longer than he had to? What was he  _ thinking _ ?

He hadn’t been, if he were honest with himself. It was just...doing. This whole day had been just him doing what he said he was going to do. Mike called, Eddie got on a plane, and now he was getting the fuck out of Derry as soon as he could. Fuck Mike. Fuck it. Fuck It. Fuck the clown. Fuck his entire childhood. Just fuck all of it.

“Eds! You ready?”

He looked up at the sound of Rich yelling for him from one room over. Rich. Rich Tozier. Richie Tozier. How long had it been since he’d said that name out loud? He’d seen it before, sure, on tv and online. But he never said it. He never thought about it. Eddie had watched his specials, laughed along with clips on Youtube, but he’d forgotten. He’d forgotten Richie. He’d forgotten all of them. And even as much as he wanted to get the fuck away from what was absolutely certain death, it killed Eddie to know that he’d forgotten. All that time, all those years, and he looked at his best friends like they were strangers. That was why he had to pack. That was why he had to go. It hurt to know that he’d forgotten, but remembering them and remembering  _ himself _ hurt way fucking worse.

“Almost. I just have to-”

“You have two suitcases. Why do you have  _ two _ suitcases?” Richie’s voice was closer, and Eddie turned to see him standing in the doorway. They didn’t have a lot of time to get the fuck out of there before Bill or Ben or Mike tried to get them to stay. Richie was holding a duffel bag, just one, and he was staring at Eddie like he’d grown a second head.

He just pointed down at one of his bags, like it was the most normal thing in the world, and shook his head, “I...it, you know, the weather…”

“You panicked.”

“I panicked.”

Richie just shook his head, let his own bag slide from where he’d slung it over his shoulder, and crossed into the room to take a seat on the end of the bed. If they hurried they could get flights out before dark, but they needed to go. Eddie couldn’t move, though. He couldn’t with Richie sitting right there and it felt like they had twenty years of  _ something _ that they should be saying. But they needed to go. They needed to get the fuck out before they all ended up dead.

Finally he could move again, and Eddie looked back down at his bag before he started piling back in way more pairs of jeans and shirts than he could have worn if he’d stayed a month. He didn’t say anything. Richie didn’t say anything, at least not for what felt like both seconds and decades, as they just watched stack after stack of clothes get tossed back into the suitcase.

“I found something,” Richie began, and in the silence of the room it felt entirely too loud and entirely too sudden, “after Mike called me. I didn’t even know I still had it. Kinda figured my mom would have kept it in a box with all my shit in the attic.”

“Your own fucking jokes? Probably haven’t seen those since high school,” Eddie said, and almost regretted it. He didn’t, not really. They’d always played off each other entirely too well, and even Richie had admitted that he hadn’t written his own stuff in however long. Still, there was something about all this that made him  _ want _ to be able to fall back into the old ribbing and making fun of each other but there was something else that made him  _ want _ to be sincere. Real. Not hide behind some jibe that was less “I fucked your mom” and more “you’re my best friend and I didn’t even know how much I missed you until seven hours ago.”

Richie dug a hand into one of the front pockets of his duffel bag and pulled something out. Something old. Something wrinkled. Something that Eddie hadn’t seen since that day in the clubhouse when Stan had presented them with their envelope of pictures from that fucking camera they took almost everywhere with them. He held it out, eyes still hidden behind glasses that were too big for his face focused down at the photo, and gestured for Eddie to take it.

He recognized it immediately. Eddie dropped whatever he was holding and reached out to pluck it from Richie’s hands. The longer they were in this shithole of a town the more came back to him, but laying eyes on that one moment made more come flooding back than anything else had thus far. He felt his hands shake, felt that tightness in his chest, and Eddie stared down at the frozen frame of the two of them at thirteen years old as he was suddenly transported back almost thirty years.

_ “Because I can cut your ugly ass face out of it and put my new girlfriend’s face in it instead!” _

_ “You’re such a dick, you know that?” _

_ “It’s why you love me!” _

Eddie needed his inhaler. He knew he did. It was in his pocket, but he couldn’t make himself let go of where he held the picture with both hands to grab it out. In that moment he could smell the dirt around them, taste the lingering sweetness in his mouth from too much candy, and feel the same shake in his hands that he’d had when he’d slipped that picture into his bag. Richie had kept this. For thirty years he’d kept it, and he was staring at it like he had the day they got those pictures developed.

“You didn’t cut my face out of it,” was all he could say. It was all he trusted himself to say.

“Yeah, I...forgot. Didn’t know who it was so I didn’t want to fuck it up.”

Finally he tore his gaze away to look up at meet Richie’s. They were both just...staring. Richie didn’t look like he was really even looking at him, like he was looking at another time. Another Eddie. A whole other life that they didn’t even remember they had.

“I think I thought it was...I mean, the one that got away, you know?” Richie went on.

“The what now?” 

His heart thudded hard in his chest and that need for his inhaler grew. Suddenly all the years in between the last time he saw his friends and seeing them again were the memories he’d lost. Myra was gone, the furthest thing from his mind, and he was thirteen again and staring at Richie like he did when they were younger and hoping that Richie would look at him  _ back _ .

Richie seemed to shake himself out of whatever thought he was in the middle of, and he licked his lips, “A friend that moved away. What did I say?”

“Nothing,” Eddie whispered with a shake of his head and held the picture back out, “nothing. Good to know I’m the one that got super handsome and you’re still fuck ugly, though.”

It earned him a laugh. Richie Tozier laughed because of something he’d said. And as that sound filled his ears and then filled his chest Eddie knew that even if he did go back to New York and to his home and to his wife that he would never, ever, forget Richie Tozier again. 

\--

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. This was never how it was supposed to end. Richie had seen enough movies, read enough books, listened to enough stupid fucking songs over the years to know that this was not how this adventure was supposed to end. They were supposed to win, which they did, and they were supposed to walk out of this town triumphant and remember every last fucking moment of it... which they would. Only this time Richie didn’t want to remember. God, he wanted to forget this ever happened.

He’d been lucky before. When he couldn’t remember and everything from when they were kids were just monsters in his nightmares, he’d been lucky. That feeling of missing someone he couldn’t quite remember had been lucky. He didn’t have to look at himself every single day and know that acute feeling of  _ who _ made his heart ache. He’d been hiding it his entire life, ever since he was a scared kid surrounded by the same friends who surrounded him now.

Minus two. Minus the two who, arguably, he missed the most. It had taken his memories before, taken them away from him, but not like this. Stan and Eddie had been alive, and even though he couldn’t remember them there was always that kind of comforting feeling that they were alive and that they were  _ okay _ .

Now they weren’t alive, and he was most certainly  _ not okay _ .

He shouldn’t have gone into that room. He should have shut the door and let whoever took care of housekeeping deal with the too many bags that had been haphazardly thrown back on the bed when they’d decided to stay. He should have gotten his stuff, said goodbye to the others, and left without doing this to himself. It was too much. It was too much and not nearly fucking enough.

They should have had more time. Why had they wasted so much fucking  _ time _ ? That, more than anything, was what It had taken from them. That time. All that time from before and in between and now the only time he had was  _ after _ , and that wasn’t the time he wanted. Not like this.

Richie wiped a hand over his face to try to compose himself, but it didn’t help. His eyes were still wet and red, and his chest felt like someone had punched a hole through it. It had done that. Pennywise had done that. Pennywise had punched a hole through his chest, just like he’d punched a hole in Eddie’s chest, and ripped something real and living and breathing out of it.

He could feel his jaw clenching and grinding together as he took a seat on the bed and just stared at the bags. Should he...do something? Should he be the one to call Eddie’s wife and tell her? Should he just pack his own shit inside those bags just take them home? At least then he’d have something of Eddie’s. Something real. Something he could hold. Something that made the shit he could remember from when he was a kid real.

It had never felt real until that moment he saw Eddie again for the first time. Then it was all too real. All too close. But now? Now he would have given fucking anything to have his best friend, his...his first crush, his first love, close to him again. Back where he was supposed to be. 

Richie didn’t know why he thought to open up those bags. He didn’t know why he felt like looking through a dead man’s things would make him feel closer to someone that both knew him entirely too well and was an actual stranger. But it did. He could touch them and feel them in his hands and almost feel the warmth of the man that wore them. It was stupid. Stupid and invasive, but Richie couldn’t help himself. He just needed something. Something real. 

Tears were still rolling down his face as he opened the second bag, and Richie sniffled as he picked up what looked to be the pillow off of Eddie’s bed at home. The fucker had brought his own pillow. Of course he had. That was absolutely something Eddie would do. Richie laughed, though it came out more like a choking sound, and pulled it into his chest. He squeezed it hard against him, buried his face in the soft material of the pillowcase, and just breathed in. he could smell what he assumed was Eddie’s shampoo, the soap he used, and the underlying scent of Eddie’s skin on it. 

He couldn’t take it. And Richie felt his knees give out as he collapsed on the floor with that pillow pressed against his face. How long he stayed like that was anyone’s guess, but at one point he could hear his muffled voice screaming over and over into it that it wasn’t fair and that Pennywise should have fucking taken him instead. Or, at least, taken him too. It was cruel, the cruelest, and the cruelest fucking thing was that It gave Richie all of them back, but had taken Eddie from him again.

When he had calmed down enough Richie sat back against the bed frame, pillow still loosely wrapped in his arms, and he sniffled again. He shifted, tried to get his legs out from under him, but the sound of something hitting the wood floor made him look down. Beside him, on the floor and half hanging out of the pillowcase, was a picture. He knew it was a picture because it was the same kind of wrinkled thing that he’d shown Eddie before...before.

A shaking hand picked it up, and immediately upon looking at it Richie squeezed his eyes closed again as another wave of anger and grief washed over him. This one was more in focus than some of the others had been. It had been taken after they’d spent the afternoon swimming, and they were splayed out on the rocky beach to get dry. Richie stared into his own face, though not into his own eyes, and studied the moment trapped forever of he and Eddie facing each other. They weren’t arguing, judging by the picture, and they both wore expressions that were relaxed and edging into smiling. A quiet moment. A moment where they’d been talking about something and he knew just by looking at it that if Mike or Ben or whoever was holding the camera had waited a split second longer they both would have been laughing at something stupid. 

“You...asshole,” Richie breathed, and pressed the picture against his face. He took a long and shaking breath, idly wondered if Eddie had an extra inhaler or seven around for him to steal a puff from, and lowered his hand so he could look at it again. It wasn’t a perfect mirror to the one he’d kept, the one hadn’t found when Mike had called but had been one that he always kept in his bag whenever he traveled. He’d never had the heart to throw it out because even if he couldn’t remember the name he remembered the feeling. And he’d kept it because it was the only time that feeling ever felt right. Eddie had kept this too, and he’d never  _ known _ .

Slowly he turned the picture over, studied the creases from almost thirty years, and Richie stopped. He felt his breath catch in his chest, and suddenly it was like he’d been shoved underwater. Through dirty glasses his gaze landed on Eddie’s small, neat, and undoubtedly younger handwriting. He knew that handwriting. Richie had copied enough of Eddie’s homework to be able to decipher even the worst of it, and he felt that hole in his chest rip open again as he read what Eddie had written in blue pen what had to be thirty years ago.

_ R + E _

It was in a shaky looking heart, and Richie knew. Richie knew. He’d never known, but now he knew. And it made him want to crawl back into that chasm that had opened up after they’d ripped Pennywise’s heart apart and go lie down and die next to the man he loved. The man he’d always loved.

The man who loved him back.

\--

The sun was shining when he left. It shouldn’t have surprised him that the wood of the Kissing Bridge was soft and easy to carve into after all these years, but it had taken less than five minutes to deepen the scratchings he’d left behind in a hurry all those years ago. Back then he’d done it fast so that he could run away and hide, but had wanted to leave something, but now it was a point of pride left on that bridge. It hurt. It would always hurt, but it was there and nothing or no one could ever take it away from him.

He got back into his car, shut the door, and just sat there for a moment. His throat ached like the tears he was holding back might drown him. Richie closed his eyes, took a breath, and reached over to the front pocket of his bag. There, folded together, were two pictures. There would always be two pictures in the front of his bag now, wherever he went, and he stared down at them for a long moment.

His flight could wait. Richie just wanted a little more time.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Two fics in a week? Someone alert the media.
> 
> 2\. I played myself with this one and ended up crying all through writing it. You're welcome.
> 
> You can always find me on Tumblr! @sallyamongpoison


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